7 US Presidents Who Cheated on the First Lady (or Did They?)

Who are those US Presidents who cheated on the First Lady? See them all named down here:

Rumors and scandals are on point when it comes to the White House. We don’t mean to “destroy” its image, but of the 46 US presidents in office, at least 15 were actively engaged in various extramarital affairs.

This means that 1/3 of them were…well…cheaters. And while this can be a common habit among normal people, when you’re the representative figure of a nation, it’s better to keep things as discreet as possible.

Although the scandals involving Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, and John F. Kennedy are well known, there have been several more obscure controversies at the White House. The stories of Gerald Ford and Franklin D. Roosevelt were two of them.

Are you ready to see who were the US Presidents who cheated on the First Lady? For some of you, this may be some old tales, but give it a go at the lecture. Who knows? The fresh knowledge out there will surprise you!

• Franklin D. Roosevelt

We start our list with US presidents who cheated on the First Lady with no one but Franklin D. Roosevelt. Not only were there allegations circulating regarding Eleanor Roosevelt’s extramarital affairs, but Franklin D. Roosevelt also had several mistresses. In 1905, he married Eleanor Roosevelt, who was his fifth cousin via marriage.

Later, in 1914, he fell in love with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, who worked as Eleanor’s social secretary. Naturally, after learning of the affair, his wife confronted him and offered to get a divorce, but his mother refused to let it happen. They carried on their marriage in public, and until his death, there were speculations that Roosevelt and Rutherfurd continued to have intimate relations.

• Lyndon B. Johnson

Johnson is another US President who cheated on the First Lady soon after he married her. But one thing was different here compared to other marriages we will talk about later: she overlooked the affairs and they stayed married for a long while.

Even though Lady Bird Johnson never spoke publicly about her husband’s affairs, she tried to be more careful about her physical appearance and even bought various alluring clothes to attract Lyndon. Unfortunately, this didn’t exactly stop him from having multiple affairs, even having a child outside of marriage. It has been said that Lyndon B. Johnson, even in the early years of his presidency, had a relationship with Alice Glass for many years.

• George H. W. Bush

Another one of the US Presidents who cheated on the First Lady was George H.W. Bush. If by now all of these mentioned former presidents were “just cheating” on their wives, according to rumors, a lot of bad things happened while Bush was president.

He was married to his wife, Barbara, for 73 years, and even if from the outside things seemed fine, their love story had various painful chapters, especially for the former first lady. She even tried to commit suicide after hearing the rumors about her husband and Jennifer Fitzgerald having a romantic affair. Apparently, this affair lasted for about 18 years.

Also, the White House was allegedly frequented by both male and female prostitutes, according to the Washington Times, but it remains unclear how frequently George H. W. Bush interacted with them.

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• George W. Bush

You’ll probably be tempted to say “like father, like son,” and in this case, it applies 100%. Former President George W. Bush was not only one of the presidents who cheated on the First Lady but was also accused of taking advantage of a woman named Margie Schoedinger, who filed a lawsuit against him in early 2002. The whole media “exploded” when she admitted that he abused her in 2000.

The woman killed herself not long after this controversy, and Bush’s lawyers treated the issue as if it never happened. A lady by the name of Tammy Phillips claimed to have had an affair with Bush around the same period. However, this was just a rumor, and it vanished shortly after it was spread. The former American President has been married to his wife since 1977.

• Gerald R. Ford

One of the two presidents, along with John F. Kennedy, was charged with having an affair with Ellen Rometsch, an East German spy. Former Senate staffer Bobby Baker began spreading these rumors. Rometsch had an intimate relationship with Gerald Ford while he was a congressman, he said.

Naturally, these were only rumors since no one thought the former US president—who was married to Betty Ford for decades—truly believed them to be genuine. What do you think? Was Gerald Ford one of the presidents who cheated on the First Lady? Tell us in the comments.

• J.F. Kennedy

Among all the US Presidents who cheated on the First Lady J.F. Kennedy is pretty high on the list. Kennedy married Jacqueline Bouvier in 1953. Kennedy was the 35th president of the United States and is frequently regarded as one of the most handsome men. Before his murder, whispers suggested he had been involved in extramarital relationships.

The former First Lady never appeared to care, even when a ton of stories surfaced about her skinny diving in the White House pool with different people, if not in public. Not to be forgotten is the infamous relationship he allegedly had with Marilyn Monroe, which was performed in honor of his 45th birthday. Even though the “news” drove the public insane, the two of them only met four times, and the affair has never been verified.

Remember that these details were just 1% of what happened in reality, so if you want to dig more into the stories of all the US presidents who cheated on the First Lady, check out this amazing book. Affairs of State: The Untold History of Presidential Love, Sex, and Scandal, which I read myself a while ago, offers an in-depth side of the story of what happened. I know it is expensive, but it is worth having it in your collection.

• Donald Trump

The last of the US presidents who cheated on the First Lady is (obviously) the one and only…Donald Trump. Trump was accused of having affairs, sexual assault, and other sex scandals before he was elected president in 2017 and 2021, but many of these incidents were made public by media reporting during his administration.

Trump had two wives before he married Melania in 2005. I guess being super rich has its perks, but of course, his first marriage to Ivana Trump ended because of one of his biggest affairs with the model Marla Maples, who would become his wife afterward.

Trump was also charged with cheating on Melania later in 2018 after Stormy Daniels revealed in the media that they slept together while his wife was pregnant.  Donald Trump is probably one of the worst presidents who cheated on the First Lady because over the years around 26 women accused him of assault and other bad things which of course, in order to protect his image he denied all of them.

Most of the scandals that surfaced during Trump’s administration came to light as a result of media stories, but there were claims of s*xual assault and affairs before he was elected in 2017.

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And before leaving the page, don’t forget to also check out an article about 10 US Presidents Who Were Pro-Slavery.